Cheap One of Our Aircraft Is Missing / Movie (Video) (Eric Portman, Godfrey Tearle) (Michael Powell) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of One of Our Aircraft Is Missing / Movie

Wartime British docudrama
"One of Our Aircraft is Missing" is a fairly typical 1941 propagandized black and white documentary style film chronicling the heroism of the R.A.F. <
> <
>A crew of six flying a bombing mission into the heart of the German industrial city of Stuttgart gets hit by anti aircraft fire and sustains engine damage. The crew including veteran British actors Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman and Bernard Miles, must abandon their plane on the way back to base. They parachute into German occupied Holland, some 40 miles from possible rescue at the North Sea. <
> <
>They are discovered by friendly local villagers who feed and hide them and coordinate their escape and return to England. Led by a patriotic school teacher Else Merteens played by Pamela Brown who is a member of the Dutch underground, the crew's escape is orchestrated under the noses of the hated Nazis. <
> <
>The film serves as both a testament to the determined fliers of the Royal Air Force and the courage of the Dutch people who fought against the oppression of the Germans.

---

A well-made, timeless British propaganda film
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a British propaganda film from 1941; leaving aside the propaganda aspects, it is a well-made motion picture that was nominated for best original screenplay as well as best special effects at the 1942 American Academy Awards (Casablanca took best picture). It also did quite well at the box office. The British bomber Bertie takes a hit during a nighttime bombing raid over Stuttgart, Germany, and her six-man RAF crew is forced to parachute to safety over German-occupied Dutch territory. Five of the men are discovered by some friendly children and are taken to town where an English-speaking schoolteacher helps facilitate their escape. The men are furtively passed along the sixty or so miles to the North Sea through a veritable underground railroad of Dutch resistance, eventually linking up with the pilot they feared had been lost. Interestingly, the most heroic assistance comes from women like the schoolteacher Els Mertens and the truly remarkable Jo de Vries. De Vries supposedly hates the British for having killed her husband in an air raid and works closely with the local German forces whom she secretly despises; this makes her the perfect final contact for the English airmen seeking to return home by sea. The final stages of the great escape do prove somewhat harrowing, but the RAF men do honor to the ancient creed of "being British" throughout the most dangerous moments. De Vries delivers a stirring ovation for the resistance and war efforts, and any Englishman or American who didn't already hate the Germans would have been more than willing to take up arms immediately and rush off to The Netherlands to free this remarkable woman and her friends in the Dutch resistance from Hitler's nefarious grip. One of the more interesting aspects of the film has to do with the Dutch resistance in general; the Dutch have a way of obeying German orders in a way that never fails to get under the occupying soldiers' skins. One of Our Aircraft Is Missing proves that propaganda can sometimes have a completely positive connotation, and the story itself is well-presented and quite timeless in its appeal.

---

"W" for Wonderful
In some ways, this is even better than that other great Powell-
Pressburger-Portman film, "49th Parallel." The casting here is
uniformly perfect. All of the stars act with a natural grace
that is a joy to watch. The propaganda is not too obvious, nor
forced. And the sly humor of certain scenes is fun (don't miss
Frank in a dress). Eric Portman is wonderful is usual, but the
entire cast is terrific. Yes, that is Peter Ustinov as a priest!
Don't miss this wonderful gem.